I went to see him this morning. For some of you, the info below will be a shock because you know nothing and I'm sure for some of you, the info below will be old news. But, here's the update as of noon:
His mom said on Monday morning, he got up, loved on the dog and went to the bathroom. It wasn't five minutes later he came out complaining of his right side hurting and said he was going to the hospital. Initially, they told him they thought it could be kidney stones. Through Monday, it got worse and by Tuesday morning, they put him on a ventilator. The final diagnosis, unfortunately, is that he had an aortic aneurysm.
Yesterday, they tried to wean him off of the ventilator by moving it down from 100% to 70%. It didn't go well, so he's back at 80% today. They have him purposefully paralyzed in order to avoid movement with the ventilator. The nurses believe he can hear when you speak to him but he's in a really groggy state and ideally, they don't want him awake for obvious reasons. His mom reported some brain swelling, but the nurses indicated he has no neuro consult, which to the nurses here at my office, means they aren't as concerned about his brain. His mom also reported he had a collapsed lung. I saw no chest tube so I'm not sure how they are treating that if that’s the case, but he does have a pulmonologist, and the nurses did indicate they are concerned with lung function.
They are also extremely concerned about his kidneys. He is having some urine output, but not enough. So, he's got a nephrologist on his case who had not been in yet this morning. Additionally, one of the bigger issues on top of all of this is that his blood pressure is all jacked up. They are trying to keep it as close to 120 without going over as possible. It's been around 111 to 112.
They've also had a problem getting his feeding tube in. Because of the particular bed that he is on, it would require a great deal of agitating movement to get the imaging necessary to use the video device to correct it, but it looks like they may have to do that to start his nutrition. I'll know more about that this afternoon when I get up there because when I left, they were doing the imaging they could do to determine if they'd been able to place it manually.
Back to the aneurysm…they are trying to stabilize him and treat it medically at the moment but he does have a cardio thoracic vascular surgeon checking on him to determine when and if surgery is necessary. Main concern there is again his blood pressure and of course, bleeding so they are trying desperately to avoid surgical interventions.
He needs all the help he can get so please keep praying to whichever higher spirit you believe in, thinking happy thoughts, etc.
